“I bought it so you can get rid of all those CDs cluttering the living room.” Devon smirked behind his sunglasses, still looking up at the sky. He has always been trying to tame my inner pack rat.
“Okay.” My chest quivered from the giggles. “I will give up my CDs and my gigantic CD towers.” Hundreds of CDs had been traveling with me on this winding road to finding my place in life—Indigo Girls, Belly, Violent Femmes, Gin Blossoms, R.E.M., Everclear, Everything but the Girl, Dave Matthews Band, Gravity Kills, Spacehog … (Does anyone even remember Spacehog?) We’d been through so much together; I didn’t want to say goodbye to those discs. But, I would do anything for Devon.
“All your songs will be in here.” He grabbed the iPod off my towel. “Just create a playlist.”
My eyes watched two seagulls soar over us. Hmmmm…a playlist? I have no idea where to start.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the support of my husband, Damon Mattson—the sweetest, smartest, funniest partner in crime a girl could ask for. In 2007, Damon took a job assignment in Ireland, which allowed me to take a sabbatical from the wine business to tackle writing this book. The project has taken nearly six years to complete because I’m merely a “weekend warrior” writer, but I’ve pushed on and kept listening to my Exes playlist on weekends. Over the years, iPods have been lost and replaced, laptops have died, souls have been searched, and there have been many months of frustrating rewrites and discouraging decline letters from literary agents. MySpace has even come and gone … and returned from the dead, thanks to Justin Timberlake. Damon has remained totally supportive through it all, and I am so grateful and indebted to him.
Special thanks to my friends and wine colleagues who read my manuscript and provided invaluable feedback: Taylor Eason of J Vineyards & Winery, Chad Arnold of Saint Mary’s College, “Foodinista” Heather John, formerly of Bon Appétit, Patrick Comiskey of Wine & Spirits and Jen Karetnick of MIAMI magazine. You slay every story you tackle; your voices, your writing continue to inspire me.
Big hugs to my girlfriends, Danielle Girten, AnnMarie Spirk and Paula Geiger, who also read drafts of this manuscript. You were irreplaceable wing women during those tipsy, late nights in Miami. Thanks for helping keep my “morning after” regret meter in check—and the same to you, Alexis Sirulnik. As for Lon Gallagher—I will forever be grateful for that fateful pep talk, and I still have that bottle of Dewars I owe you. A heartfelt thank you to Erin Jimcosky, Katie Bower and Kelly Virgulto for reading this manuscript, and to Kelly who read it twice: please don’t give up on finding your Mr. Right. I also have to give a shout-out to my ex-pat friends, Gina Fierro and Heather Montague. Thanks for helping me sort out the themes and characters of this book over cups of tea on many rainy afternoons in Ireland. You’ll always be my Galway girls.
Thank you to Jordan Rosenfeld, the talented editor and prolific Facebook poster, who provided stellar feedback on queries, book proposals and manuscripts over three years. And thanks to Gina Ardito for setting me straight about dialogue tags.
My career as a wine publicist and marketer has allowed me to study, meet and become friends with some wickedly talented people who have dedicated their lives to demystifying the world of wine through words: Alice Feiring, Leslie Sbrocco, Lettie Teague, Megan Krigbaum, Talia Baiocchi, Eric Asimov, Bret Anderson, Bruce Sanderson, Blake Gray, Ray Isle, Jordan Mackay, Michael Apstein, James Conaway, Jon Bonné, Josh Greene, Alder Yarrow, Daniel Duane, and last but not least, Tom and Elizabeth Smith. (I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, so I’ll post an addendum to my website.) Reading your stories has made me a better writer. Thank you.
Without my day job, I wouldn’t have the resources or skills to publish and promote a book like this, so I also have to give props to the coolest boss in the world, John Jordan of Jordan Vineyard & Winery. Thank you for letting me fly. And a jeroboam-sized thanks to the former management staff at Wilson Daniels Ltd. wine marketing, who supported my decision to move to Ireland to write this book.
I would also like to thank my true exes for inspiring this journey—especially those who have been supportive of this book—Lonnie Johnston and Charlie Cobb. Thanks for dumping me. You helped open some pretty awesome new doors in my life.
About the Author
With a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s in heartache, Lisa Mattson’s fate to author this book was sealed in elementary school when a snowball fight with her first boyfriend landed him in the hospital. He dumped her the following day.
Raised in rural Kansas, Mattson’s childhood was filled with cheap beer and fried chicken—an ideal foundation for a career promoting prestige wineries. Many nights spent raccoon hunting also prepared Mattson for her first journalism job writing obituaries for a daily newspaper. She escaped to Florida during college, where she chased boys and caught rays while waiting tables. Not long after taking her first wine class at Florida International University, Mattson was sipping Malbecs and editing stories for a wine magazine.
Twenty years and 50 ex-boyfriends later, Lisa Mattson is considered a thought leader in content marketing of luxury wines, juggling the roles of strategist, publicist, writer, videographer and photographer. Taking the not-so-straight-or-narrow road to finding her dream job and her dream guy was the most fulfilling—and humbling—journey of her life. The Exes in My iPod: A Playlist of the Men Who Rocked Me to Wine Country is her first novel.
She resides in Sonoma County wine country with her husband, their Italian greyhound and a dwindling wine cellar.
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THE EXES IN MY IPOD: A Playlist of the Men Who Rocked Me to Wine Country Page 39